Let me tell you, I already read all of the series yesterday and these are fantastic (Remember starting reading theae before after I found you but got distracted...). I would love to write things about Hungary this way, but still lack the necessary knowledge and writing skills to be honest. Still, if I ever get there, I must reference these articles because there are many similarities, but also some differences too.
I also see that James is here too and I'm sure he can add valuable information to the subject, but I think he will be limited by the lack of interaction with 'them'. No offense meant. Still, hopefully I can add to the discourse.
Now, back to the subject. The causes for the low trust society are mostly the same over here. The middle class/civil society got massacred over here too. Still, this might have been the point where Hungary had a little bit of headstart despite being hindered by centuries of warfare with the turkish. Things really got going during the 19th century and...yes, here comes the obligatory Trianon reference. We lost too many of the cities (cities that had hungarian/german majority even if the countryside was other nationalites). Many of those who found themselves on the wrong side of the border did emigrate, but that almost always came with a loss of status and means. The real sting was the expulsion of the danube schwäbisch though after the WW2.
The parvenu is also a great element for this. During ths wild capitalism and privatisation years many people got rich fast(too fast and people knew what it was about) and almost all of them was deserving of the nook. But this place is too limited here for that.
For communism, the main difference was tha lighter restrictions for private enterprises.
And for the minorities. As James pointed out, you can't speak about it openly but most will have strong opinions about them. I would add that speaking openly in negative terms about any minority(past or current) is considered an ultimate 'faux pass'.(On hungarian reddit the slightest mentioning of them are results an instant lock of the thread while you can spew as much bile on the "peasants"/countryside people as you want) But you would be surprised how thin this barrier can be. Still, the inner city intelligentsia rules over this discourse while probably being the only ones who don't have experience dealing with them. This is partially because there are different groups of them that can be antagonistic even against eachother. And Budapest mostly got the more controllable ones.(this is changing though, and the city dwellers are not happy)
I'm originally from the northeastern part of the country so I have far too much experience with them. All I can say here, that the things are far worse in terms of cultural and other dominance than many even can imagine.
'Let me tell you, I already read all of the series yesterday and these are fantastic (Remember starting reading theae before after I found you but got distracted...).'
I appreciate your dedication and your praise.
"Hungary had a little bit of headstart despite being hindered by centuries of warfare with the turkish."
It's interesting that the rulers of Wallachia-Moldavia attract a lot of praise from Anglophone RWers--akchewally the in-reality highly ambivalent Vlad Tepes does; nobody ever mentions the equally successful Mircea cel Batran or the magnificant Stephen the Great--while the much more successful Iancu de Huned...sorry Janos Hunyadi and other Hungarian hammers of the Turk are forgotten. Maybe it's the OrthoBro influence; whatever it is, something seems a little off.
'Vlad the impaler stopped the Turks from taking over Eur...'
NO HE DIDN'T YOU RETARD! A HUNDRED YEARS LATER THEY CONTROLLED BASICALLY ALL OF HUNGARY AND ALMOST TOOK VIENNA.
'here comes the obligatory Trianon reference.'
For whatever it's worth, Trianon seems to me a yuge injustice. I will say no more.
"We lost too many of the cities (cities that had hungarian/german majority even if the countryside was other nationalites). Many of those who found themselves on the wrong side of the border did emigrate, but that almost always came with a loss of status and means. The real sting was the expulsion of the danube schwäbisch though after the WW2."
Aha so the middle class before the 19th c was mostly foreign in Hungary also? This is new to me. Romania lost its Germans after the war too (not mainly through expulsion) and its Jews...no doubt you know the story there.
'On hungarian reddit the slightest mentioning of them are results an instant lock of the thread while you can spew as much bile on the "peasants"/countryside people as you want) But you would be surprised how thin this barrier can be.'
I had no idea Hungary was so...Western. Romania is much more pragmatic and relaxed--eg if you're buying a house the agent or owner expects to be asked whether there are any Gypsies nearby; nobody bats an eyelid.
One Romanian will insultingly refer to another as a peasant, but there's no hostility towards the rustic as such--and neither should there be--but for my part I cannot understand the adoration of the man of the soil or subscribe to the romantic fiction of premodern 'organic communities' living in perfect harmony in cyclical time.
'All I can say here, that the things are far worse in terms of cultural and other dominance than many even can imagine.'
Yes Gypsies now very wealthy and powerfuk. This fact is not widely known.
'I would love to write things about Hungary this way, but still lack the necessary knowledge and writing skills to be honest.'
Let me know if you would like to collaborate. I'm a decent proofreader but couldn't presume to contribute anything much of substance, since I don't know much about Hungary.
Vlad Tepes must be one of the most overrated figures in history and just as you said, he was not the scourge of turkish you hear from everywhere. His PR is certainly great though. Stephen the Great is certainly a good choice but Michael the Brave was also on a whole another level. And yes...the turkish were only decisively stopped in Vienna 1683 although you can say that the power parity was reached by the end of the Long Turkish War.
If you look at the map, you'll see what the greatest problem was for the Hungarians. The most devastated part way the same territory where most hungarians lived. So that led to the resettlement of the country with a lot of nationalities
I would say that the hungarians might have reached plurality in middle class, but a huge part was still nationalities...germans and jews mostly. For example let's take Uzhhorod/Ungvár. It was still majority Hungarian in the 1930s but after the war there was barely any left. Right, because most of them were jews who spoke hungarian(here's something about shooting ourselves in the foot). Budapest in 1880 was still 34% German(It did went down to 9% by 1910). For a last note: the 13 Martyrs of Arad...5 Germans, Croatian, Serbian, Armenian. But the main commander Görgey was from a Zipser Saxon family too. The commander of the army in Transylvania was Polish, Józef Bem. The dude who held out for weeks after the surrender was a german speaking Moravian, Georg Klapka.(The Transylvanian Saxons were against the revolution because it wanted to disband their privileges.) You can find a lot of foreign names among the politicians to this day and not necessarily jews.
I don't know how it ended up like this, but the word peasant ended up as a clear pejorative word. I'm not sure how it ended up like this. My father says it was the commies but I blame Ady Endre, who had some good stuff but mostly was an ultraprogressive degenerate who blamed the countryside for everything, was constantly high during his top years and died in syphillis.
Obviously you can have those *wink,wink* talks with the real estate agents. As I said the barrier is very thin and your intelligentsia type won't understand just how few they are.(And many of them are also racists, just won't admit it)
It's interesting that you say that we're so western...because I think it too. There were statistics where we reached Japan and sometimes when I go outside in more frequented places...I see it. Budapest is already in the West but it won't make it better for the city dwellers if the countryside catches up. There is this constant fable in the heads that we will reach the economic level of the West and everything will be good etc.
Well...we arrived. Yeah, things could be better at some places but it won't amount to much. This is it. The deluge of immigrants already started despite being based/racist chads and now it's clear that these are not here for University. Those were mostly perfectly alright.
(Not that long ago I randomly spoke with an arabian guy who studied the same place I was when we were still in the existing socialism. Those connections still amount to something. He wanted to offer me a job in Algeria at the oil fields for quite big money. I actually exchanged contacts with him.)
If you visit the tomb of Suleyman the Magnificent in the grounds of the Suleymeniye in Constantinople you will encounter the written claim that the Turks *did* take Vienna during his reign. 'Hidden history' or Turkish delusion? You decide!
I remember long ago visiting touristy Szentendre and reading that it was a Serb village--yes obv much resettlement even so close to Budapest to cover depopulation. Lots of fully assimilated people of Serbian origin in Romania too (eg BASED swimmer David Popovici), villages containing element 'Sirb(-)'; also once many Armenians etc.
I guess large German population in Budapest is no surprise; medieval Hungarian and Polish crowns alike very encouraging of free movement and vibrant diversity...
I remember reading once that Hungarians have more Ashk markers than any other Euro population. Fact or f(r)iction?
In Romania I think calling somebody a peasant is perhaps more a recognition of shared undesirable traits, than an insult as such. Maybe it's the same in Hungary. Communist official line here certainly wasn't anti-peasant--in fact quite the contrary, unless of course they were too prosperous...
A lot of (maybe only *some*) foreigners who go on about the deeds of Vlad seem not to realise that Ardeal was solidly Hungarian territory until Trianon. Maybe this is part of the reason his achievements seem to them greater than they really were.
There were some shenanigans with Vienna too. The first siege ended because the winter set in too soon. Then there was the 1532 campaign where they were held up in Kőszeg and agreed in the end that "let's say you put up the turkish flag and we say that we captured the castle"...so that happened. There were other likewise happenings. But Vienna is fake. I'm sure they have their own convoluted explanation for it though.
(Also local and national hero Arató András/Hide the pain Harold was invited to be Nikola Jurisic/Jurisics Miklós for one of the cultural events https://youtu.be/SSsBa2b9nTU?si=uGiKiqlIUuw1dEly )
Szentendre is cool. I made up my HQ there too. Although many rich people are moving there these days. It is also the local seat of the Serbian Orthodox Church and has some institutions there. Many Serbians were settled in and around Budapest after the recapture. Szentendre is one them. In Hungary you should look out for the Rác(I will come back to this with the family names) element (Ráckeve for example also around Budapest). The Savoya estates needed working hands. There was also the Statuta Walachorum when a lot of them were invited to boost the numbers. Among others the result of that was the military frontier with the famous grenzer units. Looking at the map you could find that it was basically what became Serbian Krajina during the Yugo wars.
Yes. Many of the cities were founded by german settlers. Even in Romania some...Piatra Neamt etc. Gherla was known as Armenierstadt. My hometown has a statue of one of the 1956 revolutionaries who was an Armenian from Dumbraveni. These are one of the things I'm mad on the Conducator(yes...I was too lazy to look up how to write his name). Transylvania and Banat had a lot of different communities, some for centuries but he had to make them leave. Asshole.
For one there were many Jews so there must have been at least some mixing. Budapest(Judapest) was also 1/4 Jewish during the first decades of the 20th century. There is also the Khazarian theory because one of the original tribes were split offs from the Khazars and their place of settling corresponded with the same place where there were the most Jews. Actually those were Galizianers and hasidim so they were not the mixing type. I guess we have the biggest remnant population of them in the former eastern block so that might amount for something (except the Soviet Union of course). It would be funny because the countryside can be still really antisemitic.
With the 'peasant' it is basically the same. I just lack the vocabulary to go around it sometimes.
Arguing about royalties and nobilities can always end in hurt feelings. We know that the Hunyadis were originally romanians(somewhere a hungarian starts to scream), but there were a constant mixing with the nobles. Vlad Tepes' second wife was hungarian too and the first one might have been an unlegitimate Hunyadi daughter. For a fun fact the Ottoman Sultans by the end of the empire were anything but Turkish. I think none of the valide sultans were Turkish so genetically you have that situation that the Turkish emperors were more armenian, greek, ruthenian, georgian...than turkish. I don't think there is a point of ownership until the age of nationalism to any of the historical persons.
I never knew about the Statuta Walachorum; doesn't surprise me though. I vaguely remember reading something about military settlement of the Krajina under the Habsburgs.
The old nobility all over Europe was cosmopolitan, in the best sense, while also keeping strict links with caste and ancestral soil (the source of wealth and manpower after all).
By Conducator I take it you mean Antonescu. Actually I believe there was a plan to deport the Gypsies to the Baragan--never fully carried out of course. Typical Romanians....
Haha yes Kostler (a Hungarian Jew as I recall) and his Khazar Hypothesis; thirteenth tribe was among my revelatory texts--or so I thought at the time. There could well be something in it though. Wexler's Slavic Yiddish theory is also interesting.
Oh, crap, right...the conducator is used mostly on Antonescu. I wanted to say the Genius of the Carpathians, Nicolae(and Elena). Selling out the germans was actually a genius idea.
On the others, I agree. Koestler was an interesting fellow too. His Darkness at Noon was the first book I read by my own volition. Don't know...it just sounded insanely cool. But Budapest(Judapest) was full with fascinating people during that time.
Maybe because one of his teachers was Dezső Szabó...The Nobel Prize-nominated writer whom no one knows how to classify.
There's a weird statue for him on the Gellért-Hill in Budapest..."Every Hungarian is responsible for every Hungarian".
He might seem quite all over the place, but I think he discovered something along the way. "A shy, soft spoken, somewhat absent-minded man, he told us of a subject more faraway than the Moon: the daily life of hired agricultural workers in the countryside" That was Arthur Koestler about him...some things never change I guess.
"An anti-Semite who despised anti-Semites; a racial nationalist who attacked László Németh and deep nationalists with bile diluted by vitriol; anti-Nazi, anti-German, anti-Horthy, anti-Bethlen, anti-Arrow Cross, communist-hater, yet plebeian in spirit, who referred to the Christian-national regime only as the 'ferret-regime.' An anti-modern prose writer, yet a stylistic expressionist. Everything about Dezső Szabó is true, and so is its opposite."
Might want to write about him once. But I'm digressing and the thread is getting very long. Might write tomorrow under the next episode because oh boy, do I have things to say about that.
The Gypsies are a fascinating breed indeed, we have a tonne of them here in Hungary, too. You are right to say that it is difficult to know their "allegiance", though here most of the population views them as a nuisance that commits a lot of crime and has a lot of children. And I do mean A LOT. For the first three years I lived here—when I was a disillusioned classical liberal—I thought the Hungarians were just racist, but now I know better.
It is wise to judge the Gypsies individually (many are fine people), though you know when you're dealing with one who could erupt into violence at any moment. Many of them are remarkably vulgar; and no, they do not observe the seven Cs you mention. I'm not sure they observe even one of those Cs.
Actually, many here are concerned about demographic change related to the Gypsies and I don't blame them. Is it the same in Romania? Hungary is not interested in cultural suicide like the rest of the West, yet the Gypsies are, at times, a concerning menace in Hungarian society. Perhaps mercifully, many are priced out of Budapest. I'm told that they dwell predominantly in Eastern Hungary.
And yeah: it's a catchy mnemonic that *could* get you a deal at Simon & Schuster; they gave one to Nancy Pelosi, after all (I'm sure she had a ghostwriter). With your permission, I might reference it in upcoming essays. Coining stuff is fun, eh?
'Actually, many here are concerned about demographic change related to the Gypsies and I don't blame them. Is it the same in Romania?'
Many Romanians can't even recognise a person of obvious Gypsy descent on sight; my wife is an example of one afflicted with this incapacity. This is due partly to cultural attrition and partly to the native Romanian inattention to details and distinctions--an unfortunate trait.
There are of course very dark native Romanians, but even I can distinguish their phenotype from that of the part-Gypsy types. Romanians will also call their countrymen Gypsies while knowing that they don't have any visible Gypsy admixture; in these cases they are referring not to race but to the adoption of Gypsy mores by the person in question.
All this is symptomatic of a convergence between the populations. The risk here, in addition to high birthrates among proper tribal Gypsies (same as in Hungary), is therefore to do with inter-assimilation, always in the direction of Gypsy culture--racial and cultural browning basically.
What you describe is odd indeed. I get that your wife can't recognize it, but that's not really a biggie; women, at least in my experience, tend not to care much about these things in the modern age. And fair enough, too—they've other fish to fry. Mine's mind is always on our boy or some aspect of motherhood, psychology, law (she's a lawyer), or recipes.
It really does sound like a sorry state of affairs over there. Sure, there's cultural attrition here, too—a kind of pervasive malaise of pessimism that hangs over the minds of so many—yet most Hungarians are sure of who they are and what they think about the Gypsies. In short, they are not fans. I've imbibed many of a long rant on the Gypsies from countless Hungarians.
Of course, language also plays a big part in all this. I get the sense that you speak Romanian like a native (though this is just a guess, honestly), while I speak Hungarian but at a low level. I point this out because there is a lot of language-based subtext that I may miss out on, which means you shouldn't take anything I say *too* seriously. My observations are based on ten years of anecdotal experiences interacting with Hungarians multiple times per day. Teaching has exposed me to many of them, while my writing job is at a Hungarian game studio where I am the only English native. Needless to say, I have a strong sense of their identity—even if I wanted to add a caveat.
Inter-assimilation may be a thing, but this seems only to happen when Gypsies act respectably and make an effort to integrate into Hungarian culture. Otherwise, they actually see themselves as separate, which is a bit confounding. I've heard them say things like "look how many Hungarians there are" in Hungarian; this certainly makes for an odd double-take of a moment.
I really could talk about this all day, but I'm going to stop myself because I, too, need to write a new poast.
I'm sure we'll come back to all this in time, eh? Godspeed, fellow Eastern Block enjoyer! (:
Oh yah I didn't mean to suggest that Romanians *like* Gypsies (the median *conscious* attitude to them here would probably be much the same as that in Hungary) yet Romanians seem to me to be *becoming like* Gypsies through cultural and genetic assimilation. As you say, it's odd.
'I'm sure we'll come back to all this in time, eh? Godspeed, fellow Eastern Block enjoyer! (:'
Romania's xenocrat ruling class has been particularly semitic for centuries now. Ottoman-employed tax-collectors, satraps, slave-catchers etc. Then nonstop rebellions in Bessarabia against their domination of economic and political life. Followed by targeted massacres during WWII by commissars and then the Soviet occupation period. This leaves a scar in people's minds.
Why bother thinking when you can just say 'the joos' and get it over with...
No no look they have done more than their share of mischief no doubt. I covered some of it previously.
The commissars, however, were *strictly* per capita and raised themselves up through the ranks *purely* on merit by virtue of vastly superior IQ--ask Steve Sailer, banania, karlin, cofnas...we're talkin about ELITE HUMAN CAPITAL here.
Tax farmers and tavern usurers were GOOD FOR GDP.
I don't know what you mean about the Phanariots. I genuinely don't think they were cryptoids if that's what you're suggesting.
I’m curious regarding the lack of interpersonal trust: does this mean that Romanian public toilets are like in China where there is no toilet paper because people would steal it?
As somewhat of an expat myself I understand the need to not trumpet the good parts of one’s chosen country (hot girls! yummy food! save $€£!) too loudly, lest more of one’s kind show up.
The battle (if that's the right word) is rapidly being lost. Romania is attracting heaps of west euros and not a few Americans. They're no threat to me and welcome to the good parts as far as I'm concerned; I would even value their company, even though my experience is that it's better, barring wife and kids, to stick with your homeland.
But this is--or should be--a matter for the Romanians to determine. Of course they will have as little say in the matter as they do about a million Asiatics in 10 years.
PS: the chix generally are not a patch on Hungarians, Slavs or Greeks and with a couple of exceptions food is terrible (yet another reason that WE NEED a million squatistanis). I'm not even lying--or *am* I!
Woooo.
Let me tell you, I already read all of the series yesterday and these are fantastic (Remember starting reading theae before after I found you but got distracted...). I would love to write things about Hungary this way, but still lack the necessary knowledge and writing skills to be honest. Still, if I ever get there, I must reference these articles because there are many similarities, but also some differences too.
I also see that James is here too and I'm sure he can add valuable information to the subject, but I think he will be limited by the lack of interaction with 'them'. No offense meant. Still, hopefully I can add to the discourse.
Now, back to the subject. The causes for the low trust society are mostly the same over here. The middle class/civil society got massacred over here too. Still, this might have been the point where Hungary had a little bit of headstart despite being hindered by centuries of warfare with the turkish. Things really got going during the 19th century and...yes, here comes the obligatory Trianon reference. We lost too many of the cities (cities that had hungarian/german majority even if the countryside was other nationalites). Many of those who found themselves on the wrong side of the border did emigrate, but that almost always came with a loss of status and means. The real sting was the expulsion of the danube schwäbisch though after the WW2.
The parvenu is also a great element for this. During ths wild capitalism and privatisation years many people got rich fast(too fast and people knew what it was about) and almost all of them was deserving of the nook. But this place is too limited here for that.
For communism, the main difference was tha lighter restrictions for private enterprises.
And for the minorities. As James pointed out, you can't speak about it openly but most will have strong opinions about them. I would add that speaking openly in negative terms about any minority(past or current) is considered an ultimate 'faux pass'.(On hungarian reddit the slightest mentioning of them are results an instant lock of the thread while you can spew as much bile on the "peasants"/countryside people as you want) But you would be surprised how thin this barrier can be. Still, the inner city intelligentsia rules over this discourse while probably being the only ones who don't have experience dealing with them. This is partially because there are different groups of them that can be antagonistic even against eachother. And Budapest mostly got the more controllable ones.(this is changing though, and the city dwellers are not happy)
I'm originally from the northeastern part of the country so I have far too much experience with them. All I can say here, that the things are far worse in terms of cultural and other dominance than many even can imagine.
This is straight up coal-free commentary.
'Let me tell you, I already read all of the series yesterday and these are fantastic (Remember starting reading theae before after I found you but got distracted...).'
I appreciate your dedication and your praise.
"Hungary had a little bit of headstart despite being hindered by centuries of warfare with the turkish."
It's interesting that the rulers of Wallachia-Moldavia attract a lot of praise from Anglophone RWers--akchewally the in-reality highly ambivalent Vlad Tepes does; nobody ever mentions the equally successful Mircea cel Batran or the magnificant Stephen the Great--while the much more successful Iancu de Huned...sorry Janos Hunyadi and other Hungarian hammers of the Turk are forgotten. Maybe it's the OrthoBro influence; whatever it is, something seems a little off.
'Vlad the impaler stopped the Turks from taking over Eur...'
NO HE DIDN'T YOU RETARD! A HUNDRED YEARS LATER THEY CONTROLLED BASICALLY ALL OF HUNGARY AND ALMOST TOOK VIENNA.
'here comes the obligatory Trianon reference.'
For whatever it's worth, Trianon seems to me a yuge injustice. I will say no more.
"We lost too many of the cities (cities that had hungarian/german majority even if the countryside was other nationalites). Many of those who found themselves on the wrong side of the border did emigrate, but that almost always came with a loss of status and means. The real sting was the expulsion of the danube schwäbisch though after the WW2."
Aha so the middle class before the 19th c was mostly foreign in Hungary also? This is new to me. Romania lost its Germans after the war too (not mainly through expulsion) and its Jews...no doubt you know the story there.
'On hungarian reddit the slightest mentioning of them are results an instant lock of the thread while you can spew as much bile on the "peasants"/countryside people as you want) But you would be surprised how thin this barrier can be.'
I had no idea Hungary was so...Western. Romania is much more pragmatic and relaxed--eg if you're buying a house the agent or owner expects to be asked whether there are any Gypsies nearby; nobody bats an eyelid.
One Romanian will insultingly refer to another as a peasant, but there's no hostility towards the rustic as such--and neither should there be--but for my part I cannot understand the adoration of the man of the soil or subscribe to the romantic fiction of premodern 'organic communities' living in perfect harmony in cyclical time.
'All I can say here, that the things are far worse in terms of cultural and other dominance than many even can imagine.'
Yes Gypsies now very wealthy and powerfuk. This fact is not widely known.
'I would love to write things about Hungary this way, but still lack the necessary knowledge and writing skills to be honest.'
Let me know if you would like to collaborate. I'm a decent proofreader but couldn't presume to contribute anything much of substance, since I don't know much about Hungary.
Thanks again for great comment.
Vlad Tepes must be one of the most overrated figures in history and just as you said, he was not the scourge of turkish you hear from everywhere. His PR is certainly great though. Stephen the Great is certainly a good choice but Michael the Brave was also on a whole another level. And yes...the turkish were only decisively stopped in Vienna 1683 although you can say that the power parity was reached by the end of the Long Turkish War.
If you look at the map, you'll see what the greatest problem was for the Hungarians. The most devastated part way the same territory where most hungarians lived. So that led to the resettlement of the country with a lot of nationalities
I would say that the hungarians might have reached plurality in middle class, but a huge part was still nationalities...germans and jews mostly. For example let's take Uzhhorod/Ungvár. It was still majority Hungarian in the 1930s but after the war there was barely any left. Right, because most of them were jews who spoke hungarian(here's something about shooting ourselves in the foot). Budapest in 1880 was still 34% German(It did went down to 9% by 1910). For a last note: the 13 Martyrs of Arad...5 Germans, Croatian, Serbian, Armenian. But the main commander Görgey was from a Zipser Saxon family too. The commander of the army in Transylvania was Polish, Józef Bem. The dude who held out for weeks after the surrender was a german speaking Moravian, Georg Klapka.(The Transylvanian Saxons were against the revolution because it wanted to disband their privileges.) You can find a lot of foreign names among the politicians to this day and not necessarily jews.
I don't know how it ended up like this, but the word peasant ended up as a clear pejorative word. I'm not sure how it ended up like this. My father says it was the commies but I blame Ady Endre, who had some good stuff but mostly was an ultraprogressive degenerate who blamed the countryside for everything, was constantly high during his top years and died in syphillis.
Obviously you can have those *wink,wink* talks with the real estate agents. As I said the barrier is very thin and your intelligentsia type won't understand just how few they are.(And many of them are also racists, just won't admit it)
It's interesting that you say that we're so western...because I think it too. There were statistics where we reached Japan and sometimes when I go outside in more frequented places...I see it. Budapest is already in the West but it won't make it better for the city dwellers if the countryside catches up. There is this constant fable in the heads that we will reach the economic level of the West and everything will be good etc.
Well...we arrived. Yeah, things could be better at some places but it won't amount to much. This is it. The deluge of immigrants already started despite being based/racist chads and now it's clear that these are not here for University. Those were mostly perfectly alright.
(Not that long ago I randomly spoke with an arabian guy who studied the same place I was when we were still in the existing socialism. Those connections still amount to something. He wanted to offer me a job in Algeria at the oil fields for quite big money. I actually exchanged contacts with him.)
If you visit the tomb of Suleyman the Magnificent in the grounds of the Suleymeniye in Constantinople you will encounter the written claim that the Turks *did* take Vienna during his reign. 'Hidden history' or Turkish delusion? You decide!
I remember long ago visiting touristy Szentendre and reading that it was a Serb village--yes obv much resettlement even so close to Budapest to cover depopulation. Lots of fully assimilated people of Serbian origin in Romania too (eg BASED swimmer David Popovici), villages containing element 'Sirb(-)'; also once many Armenians etc.
I guess large German population in Budapest is no surprise; medieval Hungarian and Polish crowns alike very encouraging of free movement and vibrant diversity...
I remember reading once that Hungarians have more Ashk markers than any other Euro population. Fact or f(r)iction?
In Romania I think calling somebody a peasant is perhaps more a recognition of shared undesirable traits, than an insult as such. Maybe it's the same in Hungary. Communist official line here certainly wasn't anti-peasant--in fact quite the contrary, unless of course they were too prosperous...
A lot of (maybe only *some*) foreigners who go on about the deeds of Vlad seem not to realise that Ardeal was solidly Hungarian territory until Trianon. Maybe this is part of the reason his achievements seem to them greater than they really were.
There were some shenanigans with Vienna too. The first siege ended because the winter set in too soon. Then there was the 1532 campaign where they were held up in Kőszeg and agreed in the end that "let's say you put up the turkish flag and we say that we captured the castle"...so that happened. There were other likewise happenings. But Vienna is fake. I'm sure they have their own convoluted explanation for it though.
(Also local and national hero Arató András/Hide the pain Harold was invited to be Nikola Jurisic/Jurisics Miklós for one of the cultural events https://youtu.be/SSsBa2b9nTU?si=uGiKiqlIUuw1dEly )
Szentendre is cool. I made up my HQ there too. Although many rich people are moving there these days. It is also the local seat of the Serbian Orthodox Church and has some institutions there. Many Serbians were settled in and around Budapest after the recapture. Szentendre is one them. In Hungary you should look out for the Rác(I will come back to this with the family names) element (Ráckeve for example also around Budapest). The Savoya estates needed working hands. There was also the Statuta Walachorum when a lot of them were invited to boost the numbers. Among others the result of that was the military frontier with the famous grenzer units. Looking at the map you could find that it was basically what became Serbian Krajina during the Yugo wars.
Yes. Many of the cities were founded by german settlers. Even in Romania some...Piatra Neamt etc. Gherla was known as Armenierstadt. My hometown has a statue of one of the 1956 revolutionaries who was an Armenian from Dumbraveni. These are one of the things I'm mad on the Conducator(yes...I was too lazy to look up how to write his name). Transylvania and Banat had a lot of different communities, some for centuries but he had to make them leave. Asshole.
For one there were many Jews so there must have been at least some mixing. Budapest(Judapest) was also 1/4 Jewish during the first decades of the 20th century. There is also the Khazarian theory because one of the original tribes were split offs from the Khazars and their place of settling corresponded with the same place where there were the most Jews. Actually those were Galizianers and hasidim so they were not the mixing type. I guess we have the biggest remnant population of them in the former eastern block so that might amount for something (except the Soviet Union of course). It would be funny because the countryside can be still really antisemitic.
With the 'peasant' it is basically the same. I just lack the vocabulary to go around it sometimes.
Arguing about royalties and nobilities can always end in hurt feelings. We know that the Hunyadis were originally romanians(somewhere a hungarian starts to scream), but there were a constant mixing with the nobles. Vlad Tepes' second wife was hungarian too and the first one might have been an unlegitimate Hunyadi daughter. For a fun fact the Ottoman Sultans by the end of the empire were anything but Turkish. I think none of the valide sultans were Turkish so genetically you have that situation that the Turkish emperors were more armenian, greek, ruthenian, georgian...than turkish. I don't think there is a point of ownership until the age of nationalism to any of the historical persons.
I never knew about the Statuta Walachorum; doesn't surprise me though. I vaguely remember reading something about military settlement of the Krajina under the Habsburgs.
The old nobility all over Europe was cosmopolitan, in the best sense, while also keeping strict links with caste and ancestral soil (the source of wealth and manpower after all).
By Conducator I take it you mean Antonescu. Actually I believe there was a plan to deport the Gypsies to the Baragan--never fully carried out of course. Typical Romanians....
Haha yes Kostler (a Hungarian Jew as I recall) and his Khazar Hypothesis; thirteenth tribe was among my revelatory texts--or so I thought at the time. There could well be something in it though. Wexler's Slavic Yiddish theory is also interesting.
Oh, crap, right...the conducator is used mostly on Antonescu. I wanted to say the Genius of the Carpathians, Nicolae(and Elena). Selling out the germans was actually a genius idea.
On the others, I agree. Koestler was an interesting fellow too. His Darkness at Noon was the first book I read by my own volition. Don't know...it just sounded insanely cool. But Budapest(Judapest) was full with fascinating people during that time.
Maybe because one of his teachers was Dezső Szabó...The Nobel Prize-nominated writer whom no one knows how to classify.
There's a weird statue for him on the Gellért-Hill in Budapest..."Every Hungarian is responsible for every Hungarian".
He might seem quite all over the place, but I think he discovered something along the way. "A shy, soft spoken, somewhat absent-minded man, he told us of a subject more faraway than the Moon: the daily life of hired agricultural workers in the countryside" That was Arthur Koestler about him...some things never change I guess.
"An anti-Semite who despised anti-Semites; a racial nationalist who attacked László Németh and deep nationalists with bile diluted by vitriol; anti-Nazi, anti-German, anti-Horthy, anti-Bethlen, anti-Arrow Cross, communist-hater, yet plebeian in spirit, who referred to the Christian-national regime only as the 'ferret-regime.' An anti-modern prose writer, yet a stylistic expressionist. Everything about Dezső Szabó is true, and so is its opposite."
Might want to write about him once. But I'm digressing and the thread is getting very long. Might write tomorrow under the next episode because oh boy, do I have things to say about that.
The Gypsies are a fascinating breed indeed, we have a tonne of them here in Hungary, too. You are right to say that it is difficult to know their "allegiance", though here most of the population views them as a nuisance that commits a lot of crime and has a lot of children. And I do mean A LOT. For the first three years I lived here—when I was a disillusioned classical liberal—I thought the Hungarians were just racist, but now I know better.
It is wise to judge the Gypsies individually (many are fine people), though you know when you're dealing with one who could erupt into violence at any moment. Many of them are remarkably vulgar; and no, they do not observe the seven Cs you mention. I'm not sure they observe even one of those Cs.
Actually, many here are concerned about demographic change related to the Gypsies and I don't blame them. Is it the same in Romania? Hungary is not interested in cultural suicide like the rest of the West, yet the Gypsies are, at times, a concerning menace in Hungarian society. Perhaps mercifully, many are priced out of Budapest. I'm told that they dwell predominantly in Eastern Hungary.
And yeah: it's a catchy mnemonic that *could* get you a deal at Simon & Schuster; they gave one to Nancy Pelosi, after all (I'm sure she had a ghostwriter). With your permission, I might reference it in upcoming essays. Coining stuff is fun, eh?
'Actually, many here are concerned about demographic change related to the Gypsies and I don't blame them. Is it the same in Romania?'
Many Romanians can't even recognise a person of obvious Gypsy descent on sight; my wife is an example of one afflicted with this incapacity. This is due partly to cultural attrition and partly to the native Romanian inattention to details and distinctions--an unfortunate trait.
There are of course very dark native Romanians, but even I can distinguish their phenotype from that of the part-Gypsy types. Romanians will also call their countrymen Gypsies while knowing that they don't have any visible Gypsy admixture; in these cases they are referring not to race but to the adoption of Gypsy mores by the person in question.
All this is symptomatic of a convergence between the populations. The risk here, in addition to high birthrates among proper tribal Gypsies (same as in Hungary), is therefore to do with inter-assimilation, always in the direction of Gypsy culture--racial and cultural browning basically.
I'm working on a poast about it...
What you describe is odd indeed. I get that your wife can't recognize it, but that's not really a biggie; women, at least in my experience, tend not to care much about these things in the modern age. And fair enough, too—they've other fish to fry. Mine's mind is always on our boy or some aspect of motherhood, psychology, law (she's a lawyer), or recipes.
It really does sound like a sorry state of affairs over there. Sure, there's cultural attrition here, too—a kind of pervasive malaise of pessimism that hangs over the minds of so many—yet most Hungarians are sure of who they are and what they think about the Gypsies. In short, they are not fans. I've imbibed many of a long rant on the Gypsies from countless Hungarians.
Of course, language also plays a big part in all this. I get the sense that you speak Romanian like a native (though this is just a guess, honestly), while I speak Hungarian but at a low level. I point this out because there is a lot of language-based subtext that I may miss out on, which means you shouldn't take anything I say *too* seriously. My observations are based on ten years of anecdotal experiences interacting with Hungarians multiple times per day. Teaching has exposed me to many of them, while my writing job is at a Hungarian game studio where I am the only English native. Needless to say, I have a strong sense of their identity—even if I wanted to add a caveat.
Inter-assimilation may be a thing, but this seems only to happen when Gypsies act respectably and make an effort to integrate into Hungarian culture. Otherwise, they actually see themselves as separate, which is a bit confounding. I've heard them say things like "look how many Hungarians there are" in Hungarian; this certainly makes for an odd double-take of a moment.
I really could talk about this all day, but I'm going to stop myself because I, too, need to write a new poast.
I'm sure we'll come back to all this in time, eh? Godspeed, fellow Eastern Block enjoyer! (:
Oh yah I didn't mean to suggest that Romanians *like* Gypsies (the median *conscious* attitude to them here would probably be much the same as that in Hungary) yet Romanians seem to me to be *becoming like* Gypsies through cultural and genetic assimilation. As you say, it's odd.
'I'm sure we'll come back to all this in time, eh? Godspeed, fellow Eastern Block enjoyer! (:'
No doubt; same to you.
Romania's xenocrat ruling class has been particularly semitic for centuries now. Ottoman-employed tax-collectors, satraps, slave-catchers etc. Then nonstop rebellions in Bessarabia against their domination of economic and political life. Followed by targeted massacres during WWII by commissars and then the Soviet occupation period. This leaves a scar in people's minds.
Why bother thinking when you can just say 'the joos' and get it over with...
No no look they have done more than their share of mischief no doubt. I covered some of it previously.
The commissars, however, were *strictly* per capita and raised themselves up through the ranks *purely* on merit by virtue of vastly superior IQ--ask Steve Sailer, banania, karlin, cofnas...we're talkin about ELITE HUMAN CAPITAL here.
Tax farmers and tavern usurers were GOOD FOR GDP.
I don't know what you mean about the Phanariots. I genuinely don't think they were cryptoids if that's what you're suggesting.
You delivered!!
I’m curious regarding the lack of interpersonal trust: does this mean that Romanian public toilets are like in China where there is no toilet paper because people would steal it?
'You delivered!!'
So will Baconschi's Bengalis--AND THAT’S A GOOD THING
'does this mean that Romanian public toilets are like in China where there is no toilet paper because people would steal it?'
I am way too sigma to use sit-
down toilets for ANYTHING, so I wouldn't know.
But heheh in all seriousness now...yeah public toilets are oriental squat type and never have toilet paper.
I should have known better than to ask…
Oh no I thought amusing yet informative reply
As somewhat of an expat myself I understand the need to not trumpet the good parts of one’s chosen country (hot girls! yummy food! save $€£!) too loudly, lest more of one’s kind show up.
The battle (if that's the right word) is rapidly being lost. Romania is attracting heaps of west euros and not a few Americans. They're no threat to me and welcome to the good parts as far as I'm concerned; I would even value their company, even though my experience is that it's better, barring wife and kids, to stick with your homeland.
But this is--or should be--a matter for the Romanians to determine. Of course they will have as little say in the matter as they do about a million Asiatics in 10 years.
PS: the chix generally are not a patch on Hungarians, Slavs or Greeks and with a couple of exceptions food is terrible (yet another reason that WE NEED a million squatistanis). I'm not even lying--or *am* I!
Noted! It’s pretty much the same case where I am too, though the hindoo firehose has not been turned on so hard—yet.
I concur about one’s homeland being best. I even named my stack out of homesickness…
they actually aren't?